For someone who’d almost been killed, she seemed too calm. He worried that her reserve meant she was in shock, though when asked direct questions, she gave coherent answers. Her hand trembled when she raised it to brush her hair from her eyes, and her pale complexion told him she wasn’t totally unaffected by the near-miss with the speeding car. But when he thought about her past, all the tragedy and trauma she’d survived, a new concern presented itself to him. After Hardin had been murdered, she’d shown surprising composure and detachment also. Maybe Annie was suppressing her reaction, bottling up her emotions as she’d learned to do in her marriage. If so, she was a ticking bomb. How much trauma could she handle before she broke? She gave her children a brave smile when they rushed to greet her in her kitchen. Haley held a fat cat in her arms, though Annie seemed to barely notice. She hugged both of the kids at the same time and held on to them even when they wiggled for release.
